You can own full auto in Wisconsin. Here is a dealer in Wisconsin that I found online.http://www.btkfirearms.com/BTK%20Firearms%20Class%20III%20NFA%20Process%20Overview.pdfRight now you must get approval from your local sheriffs office. They must sign the paper unless there is a **** good reason not to. This rule is about to be changed and will be exchanged with a notification form. It's a $200 tax for the transfer. You also need to be finger printed and photographed. The BATF will bend over backwards to transfer something that was willed to you. This keeps it away from the bad guys. As long as it was legally registered in the first place.

Old Scout wrote:Background checks are already required to buy a gun. What I do with it once I own it is the question.

No, they aren't. Background checks are required to buy a gun from a licensed "dealer". Other than that, there is no current requirement in Wisconsin for a background check. It's estimated that 40% of guns are sold without a background check. That means 2 out of every 5 guns that change hands do so without any verification that the gun isn't going to a felon, mentally ill person or someone that shouldn't have the gun for any other reason. In 2011 there were 16,454,951 background checks for firearms purchases. Not all of those purchased a gun, but they also may have purchased more than one at a time (which only requires the one check). Based on that estimate, approximately 6,581,980 guns were sold without a background check. That is 6,581,980 easy opportunities for a felon to get a gun they can use to commit another crime.

My suggestions aren't limiting what gun you can buy or what you do with that gun once you own it. They simply are saying, if you choose to sell it at any point, the sales process has to include one of the 129,817 (as of August 1st) FFL's in the US as part of the process. For comparison and to give you an idea how easy it is to find an FFL. There are 143,839 gas stations in the US (as of 2011). There are 36,569 Grocery Stores (2011) and 14,098 McDonald's (2011). Over 1/2 of those with FFL's are collectors so those people would be able to do the entire process themselves.

I don't see how attempting to limit 6.5 million opportunities for a felon to get a gun is a bad idea...

Perhaps I didn't make my point clear. To purchase a new gun from a dealer requires a background check. Once I have the gun, what I do with it in regards to selling it in the future is the question.

I still have a big concern with having a FFL dealer handle the sale as to what he is going to charge and the fact that he is then creating a paper trail that could in some future date be collected by the gov. Perhaps you have faith in the dealers being fair with their charges for handling the sale but from some past experiences with businesses, I have no doubt that they are going to be looking at making the easy buck by charging a ridiculous amount for doing the background check and documenting the sale. As for the paper trail, a receipt to the seller and buyer with no records kept by the dealer would be a better way and would eliminate that concern to some extent although there would still be a record of the background check.

I came late to this party but I must at least applaud the discussion, vehement as this type of discussion can be. I also applaud that you present some 'real' solutions and while the applicability and effectiveness can be debated, as we are here, it is at least refreshing to hear something other than 'assault weapons' and 'high capacity magazines' being the only issues. Biden's camp must be drinking the liberal cool aid if that is the best that they can come up with.

Now, to address the points that has been presented here.

a) Cable lock -- I bought two handguns this week. Both were required to be sold with some sort of locking device. This is not a requirement in Wisconsin, however it is in other states so the manufacturer just included them. Don't know that I will use them, but they are there for when I may decide to. I do store my weapons safely so using the locks isn't for me. That being said, these are not undefeatable locks by any stretch of the imagination. I see them more as a prevention of operation device so that if a kid gets their hands on the weapon it will not operate and not a viable security device.

b) Background checks of private sales. Seems like a good idea at first, however, the idea falls apart in enforcement. While most gun owners are indeed law-abiding and will comply, there are no provisions that would prohibit me from selling guns out of the trunk of my car. So the law becomes moot and expensive. Are we to task local law enforcement to try and monitor 40% of gun sales to ensure that they are ‘legal?’ Don’t see it happening, at least not without some form of revenue going to some form of bureaucracy designed for the specific purpose of tracking firearms sales. Frankly I am against expanding government any more in the first place and this in particular. c) Similarly, having FFL's broker the transfer just adds a layer of infrastructure that really doesn’t solve anything. It is kind of like having the DMV involved when I sell my lawn mower. Any time you get a 3rd party involved, and any time you increase infrastructure, you add cost. Similarly the same fault lies with the idea of a 48 hour waiting period for private gun sales. Who stores the guns? Who ensures that the waiting period is indeed followed? Who does the background checks? Sounds like another layer of infrastructure that will increase bureaucracy that we have to somehow pay for.

So what will work? I think tons of education. Look how we throw money, and rightly so, at anti-drunk driving campaigns. These ads don’t say ‘drinking is evil’, it says that irresponsible drinking is bad. We need to develop the same attitude in public education that states the same message. Firearms themselves are inert and incapable of evil or good. If we introduce a culture that states firearms are a part of life (if 800 million owners nationwide are any indication) and we further reinforce the responsible use of firearms, I think that we will see a direct correlation. Sadly, drunk driving still exists and incidentally kills more people each year then all violent crimes combined, but there has been improvement in the culture of alcohol consumption. I do believe that with similar emphasis on firearms safety there can be a demonstrable difference. Lastly, I work in emergency medicine and have for near 20 years now. I too think that the way we treat the mentally ill in this country is deplorable. I have personally been involved in cases where the patients that I have treated need some sort of service and the best we can give them is 3 hots and a cot, if that, at the crisis center. That is if there are beds available, and that is if the patient is indeed dangerous. Did you know that you can say you are going to kill yourself, have a plan, have the tools to implement the plan, but if you tell the crisis worker that you don’t plan on going through with it and you sign a ‘no self-harm’ contract, you will most likely get released within a matter of HOURS of admission. This is mental health? This is keeping us safe? This is keeping the manic, obsessive compulsive, bi-polar person from getting into a car and plowing into a crowd of people to ‘make the noise in their heads ‘go away’. We need real change in the way we treat our mental health patients. THAT will create more of an effective culture for safety and prevention of violent crime than any knee jerk propaganda measures.

*** The opinions expressed herein are uniquely MY OWN and should not be construed as an endorsement of any sort by my employers or of any professional associations to which I hold membership. I can dig myself into holes just fine without their help, thank you very much***

One half of the FFLs are collectors so and with as many of them as there are, I still think with the number of FFLs out there you should be able to find someone that will do it cheaply. I also did a little more research and found out the background check might not always have a cost. The $13 I quoted early is Wisconsin's charge for a handgun transfer.

I can agree with the concerns of the paper trail. I'd be fine with not having the FFL keep a record of the transfer (beyond possibly a receipt of some type, if they're charging people they'll need to pay income taxes). I also understand the concern about a background check being evidence of a transfer but if there are over 20 million checks, and not all of them are finalized in a sale, it's going to be pretty hard to be specific about who did what at exactly what time.

MedicDVG,

I don't think figuring out simple things like who hold the gun for a 48 hour wait is going to be that complicated. My guess would be either the seller could hold it, or the FFL could.

I know the background check is a difficult task. That's why I suggested the FFL be involved. The FFL ensures the laws are followed, runs the background check, etc. They will want to ensure they are doing their job or risk losing their license. And the justification for following the the law could be pretty simple. If you don't follow it, and that gun is used in a crime, it may be traced back. Get caught not following the law, you could lose your right to own guns. Should be a pretty solid justification for a gun owner to want to make sure they follow the process.

You keep talking about tracing a gun back to the previous owner, but let me throw you a scenario. I purchased a handgun 20 years ago from a private owner. There is no record of my owning the gun. One night I am out and need some money so I sell it to a guy I met at the local pub. I have no idea who he is and don't care as long as he has the cash to make the purchase. We go out to my car, make the deal and he leaves with the gun. Some time later he uses it in a crime and gets caught with it or he has a record and it not allowed to own a gun and gets caught with it. There is no paper trail to show I sold it to him, and no evidence that I ever owned it. How is anyone ever going to prove it was sold it to him without following the law ? ? For all anyone would know he could have stolen it and tried to say he purchased it. Unless I gave him a receipt for it, (which under the circumstances probably would not happen) they would be wasting their time trying to trace it anywhere.

With all the guns that are out there this is going to happen the vast majority of the time because many just aren't going to agree with the law and don't want to go through the hassle. It is just too easy to ignore it and do things the way they have always been done. It's a nice idea but I just can't see it doing any real good, other than adding to the cost, lining someone else's pocket and making criminals out of normally honest people.

I personally think this law would be a waste of time and effort for what little was gained.

Perhaps, or maybe you sell that gun to someone normally upstanding and they get caught shooting a deer, or heck, get pulled over on the way home. And maybe they're more than happy to help cut a deal.

People are always going to break the law. Even if 1/2 of the guns sold followed this thats 3 million guns that didn't fall into the wrong hands.

Amazingly, some people are actually dumb enough to try and go through the background checks on new guns. Did you know they actually ask you if you are a fugitive of the law? My process could even help catch a few people (wouldn't it be nice if the felon went back to jail for trying to buy the gun rather than something worse)?

And again, knowing the risk that if you get caught you'll never legally own a gun again. Never buy a hunting license, etc. how many people are going to take that risk?

Perhaps, or maybe you sell that gun to someone normally upstanding and they get caught shooting a deer, or heck, get pulled over on the way home. And maybe they're more than happy to help cut a deal.

In the first place if he is an upstanding person he has every right to own the gun so even if he got pulled over on the way home it has nothing to do with the gun. If he is speeding that is all they will care about. If he has a CCW permit or if it is in a case and unloaded he is totally legal. The police won't give a hoot where he got it.

Good try, but without any proof or evidence they still have to prove it. I do believe that is still required in court, unless they plan on taking that away some time soon.

The point I am making is that without any documentation this law would be just another fine idea that isn't going to work all that well. Many will ignore it and there isn't a whole lot they can do about it unless they want to spy on everyone and keep track of their every move. Guns will still be sold and the gov. won't know anything about it. Most honest people will follow the law, but do you seriously believe that anyone with criminal intent is going to submit to a background check. If nothing else they will just steal yours commit the crime and if the gun is recovered you will get blamed because it is registered in your name and you have to prove it was stolen and you didn't just use that for an excuse or an alibi.

If they want to prevent incidents they need to concentrate on the people that are committing the crimes and not the tool they use. Otherwise they will be wanting to registrar baseball bats, cars, kitchen knives, hatchets and anything else that could be used.

All this type of laws would do is mess with the honest law abiding people and do nothing to solve the problem.

Last edited by Old Scout on Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Resolution of a constitutional issue takes more than a week of supposed analysis by a predisposed political committee lead Joe Biden. Violence in our culture deserves broad deep solutions not the posturing of a loaded committee of leftists and chaired by such a shallow man. The recommendations put forth by Biden's group will be word for word those being promoted by the liberal Washington "think" tank the Center for American Progress. These mass killings are a mental health issue and not a gun issue but that was hardly addressed at Biden's meet and greets. Once those proposals are presented to the "Potentate with a Mandate," and made public, all one has to do is look at the individual proposed dictates and ask if that thing would have stopped any one of the shootings? I am betting the answer is NO! The Obama administration is unwilling to address gun violence where it is a real problem. There are approximately 500 rifle, not assault rifle, deaths a year in our country of 310 million. There are thousands of handgun deaths and most of those deaths are between criminals in urban areas. The best example being Chicago, Obama's adopted city, with it's very strict gun laws and record breaking numbers of homicides. Not one of Biden's proposals will address the true gun violence issues. Instead they will continue to vilify law abiding citizens and propose feel good solutions that will stop neither psychopaths intent on killing people or inner-city crime.

The Obama administration's Operation "Fast & Furious" unlawfully and feloniously trafficked hundreds of assault weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels and those weapons have been involved a multitude of crimes and homicides in Mexico as well as the murder of a US Border Patrol Agent. The US DOJ, DEA, and BATF were directly involved. These same agencies will also be directly involved in enforcement of the Potentate's new dictates on law abiding US citizens. My bet is those agencies will be able to pinch ordinary law abiding citizens for having a rifle clip that is illegal under the Obama dictates, but after months of investigations can't figure out who ordered "Fast and Furious" to proceed.

If you are naive enough to think that the Potentate's new dictates won't reach out to a small rural community like Tomahawk you are mistaken. The liberal Huffington Post has just gone after the small , western Wisconsin community of Spooner, WI. (population 0f 2300), over a tiny gun show. The Indianhead Rifle & Pistol Club has hosted the two-day event at Spooner Elementary School for the past 20 years. The annual event is a community gathering that benefits students through the club’s payment to the school, which has previously amounted to around $1,000, but it doesn't suit the national media's liberal agenda. You can bet the Janet Napolitano's BATF will be flying in and crawling all over that event, looking for that evil doer with to many bullets in his magazine.

Like I've addressed in previous posts; I'm not a gun type guy, I don't hunt, I don't collect guns and the only ones I keep were tools of the trade and they have some sentimental value to me personally. Those guns are kept locked away and are never even displayed. My only concern is the erosion of constitutional rights that are constantly under attack by the extreme left wing in this country. Where freedom of religion suddenly means no religion, where freedom of speech means only politically correct or agreeable to the left speech, where the media has lost the ability or the desire to seek the truth if it doesn't fit their agenda, where we're being taxed to the point of bankruptcy, etc, etc.

The Constitution specifically and directly insulates the right to keep and bear arms from interference from the government. It could not be more clear: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Since the Center for American Progress, the Congress or even a Potentate with a Mandate can't change the Constitution, how could they possibly take away your right to keep and bear arms? The Second Amendment was not written in order to protect your right to hunt and shoot deer, collect guns, or whatever it was written to protect your right to shoot tyrants if they take over the government.

Old Scout wrote:Most honest people will follow the law, but do you seriously believe that anyone with criminal intent is going to submit to a background check.

That's the thing, they DO, well some of them anyway. In the last 10 years there have been 987,578 denials of the NICS background check. Of those, 577,814 had been convicted of a crime with a substantial sentence, 101,393 domestic violence, 94,478 had an outstanding warrant, 42,459 had a restraining order against them, 10,180 were denied for mental health reasons and 57 had renounced their US citizenship. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/20130102_denials.pdf

I suspect a lot more of the people likely to fail the background check are in the used market, buying a new gun generally isn't what I would call cheap.

You may be right, it might not work and might not be overly enforceable. But I suspect the same thing was said about making it illegal for anyone under 21 to buy alcohol too. Same arguments, someone else will just buy it for them, etc. It doesn't mean we don't try to keep alcohol, something potentially dangerous in the wrong hands, away from them. We also are able to catch some people providing alcohol to minors illegally. Heck, they even occasionally catch a drug dealer. Neither of those people are doing much to provide a paper trail either.

I don't think what I've suggested is so substantially challenging to prevent most people from being willing to follow the procedures. I also suspect if you did a few spot checks at things like gun shows to make sure they're following the rules you'd hit a significant enough number of sales to make a difference.

I also think they should do a better job of arresting the people that fail the background checks that happen now. A substantial portion of those people probably shouldn't be walking the streets just due to stupidity...

I also think they should do a better job of arresting the people that fail the background checks that happen now. A substantial portion of those people probably shouldn't be walking the streets just due to stupidity...

Now you are getting the right idea ! ! !

Enforce the laws we have instead of creating more so that there will be more laws that will be ignored and not enforced. Right now there are plenty of laws on the books that could solve the vast majority of our problems if the police would just arrest the person violating them, they were prosecuted, and the judges would actually lock them up instead of giving them a slap on the hand and telling them they were bad boys and don't do it again.

The other thing to keep in mind is that by making it harder to purchase a gun you are only affecting the honest people. The bad guys get their guns through the black market out on the street, or steal it and could care less about the law. Look at Chicago or New York, two of the crime capitals that have the toughest gun laws.

Lets punish the criminals instead of the honest citizens.

We can kick this back and forth until the cows come home and I doubt that we would ever agree, so lets just agree to disagree and save a lot of time and typing.

Is this what they mean when people define Madison as 30 square miles surrounded by reality ?

I just looked up the gun laws in Madison. You want to talk about a joke... Every gun sold must be reported to the police within something like seven days. Handguns still have a seven day waiting period (and includes private sales). No assault rifles (as defined by name, there's a good idea). And a bunch of other great ones...

TexasWyomingSouth CarolinaMississippiMissouriIndianaGeorgiaArkansasJackson county KyLinn county Oregon

These states are standing up for what is right by fighting back against the tyranny that is going to happen tomorrow. I applaud them in their efforts to stand up for the people at the bottom, not just kings and queens at the top. Tomorrow the line in the sand will be drawn, tomorrow WILL go down in history. Tomorrow will be know not only as the day that our leaders tried to break us, it will also be know as the day that we refused to let our leaders break our constitution. Businesses are already refusing to do business with NYPD. Why does Barrack Hussein Obama give arms to the people Egypt and Libya to fight for their freedom but yet he stands on dead children as a grandstand to take them away from us. First, He will try to take away our second amendment rights, if he succeeds he will not stop until the entire constitution has been abolished.

How about we actually wait and see what is proposed before we start declaring civil war? Any bans on guns or magazines will have to pass congress and from what I've read most of the executive order ideas are things like appointing a director of the ATF (which hasn't had a director for six years now).

I'm not saying I'll agree with anything announced, just saying, lets see what's announced before we declare we won't stand for it...

Hey Kerry, have YOU been to gun show lately? Because the last one I was at I had to fill out the same paperwork that I did just recently buying 2 guns from a registered gun dealer. You REALLY do not know what you are talking about. I know that it is easy for you to "Google" your statistics, but maybe getting out in the real world will do you a bit of good. Just like you've never dealt with the state of WI in filing sales tax or the federal gov't in filing withholding taxes. What a joke! More regulation, and beaucracy is NOT the answer. By the way, while you are busy using your Google toolbar, look up the WI DNR and how many kids that took the Hunter's safety coarse have been involved in a violent gun crime. Education is key, not gov't regulation.

mizriz wrote:By the way, while you are busy using your Google toolbar, look up the WI DNR and how many kids that took the Hunter's safety coarse have been involved in a violent gun crime.

If you want to use a statistic to make your point you can look it up. If you aren't going to find the information it's about as valid as saying 50% of those kids believe in unicorns...

And it's not just violent crime. How many of those trained in hunters safety are ever involved in an accidental discharge, gun accident, etc. My point on the hunters safety requirement for concealed carry is that is something that training should be more ongoing. It's not something you do some training once 20-40 years ago and you're good.

mizriz wrote:Hey Kerry, have YOU been to gun show lately? Because the last one I was at I had to fill out the same paperwork that I did just recently buying 2 guns from a registered gun dealer.

Mizriz,

Must not be the case at all of them huh? Since that's what a lot of the uproar is over right now and is what they are talking about trying to pass a law to change? Not everyone at the gun shows is required to do that. Depends where you are, whether they are an FFL, etc.

mizriz wrote:Just like you've never dealt with the state of WI in filing sales tax or the federal gov't in filing withholding taxes.

Have you ever dealt with getting a private company's products listed on the GSA website? How about completed a 2nd or 3rd class bulk postal form?

You know what my examples and yours have in common? They have NOTHING to do with the conversation at hand. Especially since my suggestions did as much as possible to keep the government portion of the process to a minimum (the background check, which would be handled by the FFA).

After listening to the big speech all I can say is that you and I and all the rest of the law abiding citizens are facing tougher restrictions on the guns we can own and the hoops we have to jump through to purchase a gun but it will do nothing to stop the criminals from getting them illegally on the street or by stealing them. Remember a few months back when Stattons General store was robbed. They scooped up a bunch of hand guns and what ever else they wanted and I would be willing to bet that they were on the street in Chicago within a few days. This is going to happen and background checks aren't going to do a thing to stop it. There are already a lot of laws on the books that if just enforced would do some good.

Example, if a gun is used in a crime a mandatory sentence in addition to the sentence for the crime. How often is this actually used ?

As far as the magazine capacity is concerned, anyone who has used one of these types of rifles know that changing a magazine doesn't take all that long. During 20 years in the military I put a lot of rounds down range in both full and semi auto and can drop a magazine and insert another without hardly missing a beat. So instead of a couple of large magazines they carry several smaller ones, no big deal for them. They will still do what they set out to do. But it is a feel good thing.

All this whole deal is, is a political show to make people feel good because they are passing some more laws.

All in all I guess it is the executive orders that bother me the most. Let the laws be written and passed by the house and senate who actually represent the people that elected them (at least they are supposed to) not by some dictator who thinks he knows best and just bypasses the legislative process.

If they would work as hard at balancing the budget, controlling spending and quit messing with the economy they might actually accomplish something.

Kerry,if someone is overweight, making them register their forks and knives is not going to make them any skinnier. Neither is taking away their big forks and spoons so they only have small ones. No amount of regulation or litigation is going to change the intent and actions of the person in question. In 3 pages, I don't recall seeing any support for these ideas. I believe this is because they do nothing to fix the actual problems. Neither will whatever BS executive order Oblah blah and Bonehead come up with. Given that you work in a college system, I would have guessed that you would come up with something more related to the root cause of unstable students turning into mass murderers as you are closer to the college culture than most here. Studying the correlation between these people and bullying, social exclusion and mental defect will do far more to fix these problems than any executive disorder. I understand that you said these cases were not your focus, however, this thread only popped up after the shooting in Sandy Hook. That is not coincidence.

Obama's number of executive orders issued in his first term (including these 23) puts him at 167 from what I can tell. That's pretty similar to both Bushes and Clinton and fewer than every president's four year average (other than the Bushes, which were close, 146 and 166) since Grover Cleveland.

neup99 wrote:Kerry,if someone is overweight, making them register their forks and knives is not going to make them any skinnier. Neither is taking away their big forks and spoons so they only have small ones. No amount of regulation or litigation is going to change the intent and actions of the person in question. In 3 pages, I don't recall seeing any support for these ideas. I believe this is because they do nothing to fix the actual problems. Neither will whatever BS executive order Oblah blah and Bonehead come up with. Given that you work in a college system, I would have guessed that you would come up with something more related to the root cause of unstable students turning into mass murderers as you are closer to the college culture than most here. Studying the correlation between these people and bullying, social exclusion and mental defect will do far more to fix these problems than any executive disorder. I understand that you said these cases were not your focus, however, this thread only popped up after the shooting in Sandy Hook. That is not coincidence.

Neup99,

The thread came up because this is common discussion point that is in the news since the shooting. The gun lock idea is something I've been suggesting for over 10 years. Mass shootings are a small portion of the gun deaths in the US. Humans are horrible at determining the actual risks they face (look at all the bull crap we put up with now in the name of protecting ourselves from terrorism, 95% of which will never do anything but make you feel good). Rather than letting the discussion focus on things that aren't really problems (so called assault riffles), I'd rather see it go in a direction that actually helps reduce the greater threat (violent crimes that involve guns, accidental shootings and suicide).

And once again, stop trying to change what my suggestions are. Now you're talking about registration and taking away big forks and spoons. Have I said ANYTHING about limiting the guns or magazines? NOPE, because I don't believe that will actually help anything. The only advantage to limiting magazines is it might give you a short pause to attack while the shooter is changing mags. Not a whole lot of benefit there. Now, helping limit the supply of guns to people who have already committed crimes, that could help reduce overall gun crime.

Studying the correlation between these people and bullying, social exclusion and mental defect will do far more to fix these problems than any executive disorder.

That's a good idea too. I don't think it's going to lead to much though. But if studying the issues is a good idea we might want to look at changing some other laws too. It's currently illegal for some of the government agencies to study details related to gun crimes. Seems the NRA thought it would be a horrible idea to actually do some research on how guns are used in crimes and how they fell into the wrong hands...